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ABSTRACT
This article examines the importance of "alien exclusion" in the construction of United States citizenship for Puerto Ricans. After briefly discussing the Treaty of Paris and the Foraker Act, it examines three crucial Insular Cases-Downes, Gonzales, and Balzac-to explore the evolution of this idea. Citizenship is very important in Downes, where the notion of excluding the "alien" colonial subjects from the American polity was central to the policy of excluding the territories from becoming "part" of the U.S. This idea was also central to the debates in Gonzales, where the U.S. government argued in favor of extending the Chinese Exclusion laws to Puerto Ricans. "Alien exclusion" was also present in Balzac, where the Supreme Court legitimized a colonial citizenship with limited membership and participation in the American polity. But Balzac also contends that migration to the metropolis is the most important citizenship right granted to Puerto Ricans: citizenship became a fundamental requirement for migration from the colonial periphery to the metropolitan territory. [Key words: Insular Cases; Downes v. Bidwell; Gonzales v. Williams; Balzac v. People of Porto Rico; U.S. colonial citizenship; alien exclusion; Chinese exclusion laws; migration]
united states colonialism and citizenship have defined the history of puerto rico and puerto ricans after puerto rico became a u.s. territory in the aftermath of the war with spain in 1898. The extension of citizenship by a colonial government to the peoples of the newly conquered territories became a controversial policy that generated passionate debates in the press, in academia, in the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. The Supreme Court played a significant role in defining American colonialism and citizenship for the newly conquered territories in a series of decisions that became known as the Insular Cases. Scholars of the Insular Cases sometimes portray the construction of colonialism and the structuring of a colonial citizenship in these territories as separate although occasionally interrelated phenomena. Downes v. Bidwell (1901) is commonly conceived as the defining moment in the construction of American colonialism overseas, while Balzac v. People of Porto Rico (1922) is understood to be the crucial instance in the definition of a colonial citizenship. In this view, it is in Balzac where colonialism and citizenship most clearly intersect in the Insular Cases. The Supreme Court...